Right. But, you do see love in an America where half of it's citizens earn less than $26,000, where people must go into debt in order to survive, where 1 in 7 are on food stamps, 49 million have no health insurance, 22% of our children live in poverty, 42% of our African American children live in poverty, etc. etc.

You see love in an immoral economic system that fails the masses, that says "Let them borrow and eat cake."

When he was on the phone with the police he eventually started back to his vehicle. Zimmerman didn't just pull out his gun and gun this kid down in the street in cold blood. Why is it so hard to believe that Trayvon attacked him? Zimmerman isn't exactly a big guy.

Don't be a hater. I live very frugally. As I have all my life since growing up on welfare, in the projects of brooklyn. but enough about me. (and your attempt to distract with personal attacks)

Accidental falling is a ridiculous comparison. Are you suggesting the armed adult Zimm accidentally stalked this innocent unarmed teenager?

Are you suggesting he accidentally shot Trayvon?

Zimm wasn't a maniac just a racist, reckless individual of poor quality, and the homeowners association has to take responsibility for empowering Zimm, and for enabling him to roam freely with their authority. They were guilty and that is why they settled, regardless of the bullshit distraction settlers always spew, "oh well we didn't want to waste time and money" LOL. Only morons believe that shit.

Everyone involved understands that, I guess you can't help standing against the victim. The reflex comes to you so easily.

So if you try to provide the community with some security, and one of em decides to go nuts, then it means that you lose everything?

This would be paramount to someone who helped with security in occupy going nuts, and then the entire group being punished because of one person. We had plenty of assholes in occupy, accepted everyone. While their actions are a reflection of the group in the eyes of the public, to go in and take what everyone else has after the matter is insane.

It always depends on how the lawyers get the jury to look at things. Let's say your example happened. It might be argued that occupy didn't exercise reasonable care in checking backgrounds. If the jury believes occupy has some share in the blame then you get a winner in the law-suit-lottery.

Florida Statute 776.012 - "a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony"

Stand your ground wouldn't matter if it went down like Zimmerman said (which we have no idea of) because he did not have the option of retreating if Trayvon was on top of him.

I am pretty sure that, in any state, if someone is on top of you punching you and slamming the back of your head into the ground you can, and should, put a bullet or two into their chest.

Connecticut - "deadly physical force cannot be used unless the actor reasonably believes that the attacker is using or about to use deadly physical force or inflicting or about to inflict great bodily harm"

New Hampshire - " A person is justified in using deadly force upon another person when he reasonably believes that such other person:
(a) Is about to use unlawful, deadly force against the actor or a third person; "

You can literally go state by state and find similar laws. Again, we have no idea what really happened but if Trayvon was actually on top of him, punching him and slamming his head into the ground, he would get acquitted in all 50 states.

Yes - you and I were not there. But Zimmerman did not even have a band aid when his video at the police station was taken ( after his hospital visit ) also he had no business chasing Trayvon down in the 1st place - that was and is for the police to do.

What about the pictures that show the front and back of his face bloodied?

You are right, he shouldn't have followed him in the first place but if Trayvon is the one who initiated the fighting and did in fact cause those injuries, then this is a merely a case of self defense. Stand your ground would not even apply.

Too many people have found Zimmerman guilty (or acquited him) based off of what is seen in the MSM. How this case can attract such strong feelings, on both sides, without really knowing all of the evidence is beyond me.

Again, just pure and rampant speculation and you admit that you don't even care about the "evidence" being presented to the public. The pictures show a cut to the back of the head and what appears to be a broken nose. If they are real, and they appear to be, the shooting of Trayvon is justified with or without a stand your ground law.

But again, you, like me and the rest of America, have no idea what really happened. Even if the MSM could be trusted they would not have access to the level of evidence held by the prosecution and defense.

So many people are willing to try and convict a person based on emotion and a CNN article. If the actual evidence presented at trial is similar to what is being seen in the media, there is no way Zimmerman will be found guilty.

Exactly. Still not sure why we heard about it. 2 guys got in a fight. One was getting the better of the other so the guy getting his ass beat pulled out his gun. For some reason this becomes a national news story.

If he is on top of you punching you in the face and smacking your head on the ground you can shoot to kill and you would be justified. If that is what the evidence should show during the trial there is not a jury in the country that would convict him.

This has nothing to do with what is a 'fair fight' and everything to do with defending yourself. If Trayvon was indeed beating the shit out of him, Zimmerman had every right to put a bullet in his chest. I would have put a few in there if it was happening to me.

Why can't a grown man be a responsible gun owner and use appropriate force. Obviously shooting an unarmed teenager is excessive force. Zim was a grown man. He wasn't skinny. He had upper body strength. Seems more than the teenager. He did not have to be dishonorable, cowardice, overreact.

If Zim could not free himself he deserved to get his ass kicked.

Besides I don't think Trayvon slammed Zims head on the ground, I believe Zim slipped on the wet grass when he was illegally stalking/chasing the unarmed teenager.

This is not complicated. Crimes were being committed in the area. Zimmerman saw someone he thought suspicious. Called the police and followed the suspicious character while talking to police on the phone. The suspicious person didn’t like being followed and attacked Zimmerman. Zimmerman, fearing for his life, pulled his weapon and shot the guy in self defense. Case closed. I’m pretty sure that what’s the jury will decide.

Racist tweets? Yea, probably. That’s sad because the incident itself doesn’t appear racist. It’s the aftermath that taken on a racist edge. This is clearly a racially charged case. I read somewhere a few months back that blacks overwhelmingly see this case a race based, while most whites see it as a self defense issue. So, assuming that is true then race is a factor.

The reports I read said Martin was 5”11” to 6”2” in height; and weighed 158- 160 pounds. Zimmerman is reported to be 5’7” and 170 pounds. Martin was 17 years old (legally an adult). Zimmerman was 28 years old. Sounds to me like Zimmerman was attacked by someone larger and younger than him.

Are you joking? You think you would allow someone to sit on top of you and beat you and you’d just “take it like a man”? I would fight like a man the best way I could. My life is important to me. I will not allow someone to try to kill me without trying to stop it. Somehow I think you’d do the same.

well I wouldn't be stalking anyone of course, but as I am born and bred in brooklyn I never allow anyone to get on top of me. I saw the numbers as unarmed teenager: 5' 10", 150lb, armed adult 5' 8" 180lb.

But even your claims indicate the armed adult was heavier. I saw the kid he wasn't wide from pumping iron like the armed adult was reported to have done quite a bit.

Sooo. Maybe the armed adult should have been a responsible gun owner and not illegally stalk an innocent teenager, and then not not allow said innocent teenager to get the drop on him. Certainly he should not have murder the kid because he was getting beat up.

Zimm should be put away for life for recklessly creating that situation and murdering that child in cold blood.

This case has been hashed and rehashed some many times. People have made up their minds on what happened. I doubt anyone will be changing their minds; including you and I. So no point in discussing it further.

My original point was the case IS race based when it shouldn’t be. Most blacks think Trayvon was murdered, Most whites think it was self defense.

My point is race shouldn’t be an issue in this case. But it has turned out to be very racially charged. It’s a phenomena I don’t understand; and I’m curious why race has become such an issue here. Why do most black and whites seem to see the case differently.

I’m not making judgments beyond my personal opinion. I’m just interested in why it’s so racial charged. It also makes me wonder if the races of Zimmerman and Martin were reversed would this have been such a big news story.

I stand by my statement that NYC isn’t a microcosm of the rest of the US. There was TV news story a few week back about how the attitudes and beliefs of most large cities are different from rural and smaller town. If I remember correctly it said once you get a hundred miles or so outside large cities people view social issues differently; meaning generally more conservative.

Folks in NYC, Chicago, Atlanta and so on can do whatever they want. It’s a free country. But people outside the cities are resentful the big city ideas are being forced on them. Personally I prefer to live where the city fathers don’t do stop-and-search, where I can buy any large soft drink, where I can smoke wherever I want (I don’t smoke) and I can carry a gun for protection.

Sorry, following a suspicious character because there had been crimes in the area is not stalking. It does not fit Florida’s legal definition of stalking. The “stalking” term is simply wrong on this case.

As far as stop-and-frisk goes. Yes. I think it is illegal. I think it fits a news story on one of the major news channels a few days ago saying New York is the least free state. I wouldn’t live there.

Maybe you should not believe everything you see on the tv about the big city (or anything). Have you been to the big city?

People are different inside and outside of cities. I prefer living amongst many different people and not sheltering amongst one kind, cowering in fear, clinging to my guns and religion. And ranting about the big city after the oo tube spews and skews reality.

Even though I was born and raised on a farm. I attended college in a major city and lived in San Francisco, Dallas and Houston. My career involved a lot of travel to large cities, including NYC several times. I’m not a country bumpkin.

My observations is that attitudes and beliefs are different in urban areas. Actually very different. I guess it depends on your personal beliefs on whether that’s good or bad.

So, you continue to enjoy NYC and I’ll continue to enjoy where I live where coyotes and feral hogs a problem and a gun is useful just to shoot rattle snakes; and we’ll both be happy. I’m done here,

Sorry, I wasn’t my intent to slander NYC. I was agreeing with you on stop-and-search. NYC isn’t my kind of town. But it’s OK with me if you enjoy it. NYC isn’t a microcosm of the US. If fact I’d say it’s kinda out of step with what the rest of the country thinks. I do not want to live by NYC standards.

So you know for a fact Martin was followed because he was black? I don’t know if that’s true or not, and neither do you. As I said in an earlier post, I think you’ve already made up your mind and won’t consider any other opinions.

aAHHhahahaha - yeah - funny - provide those pictures - all I ever saw on the day - from his police station visit - after the incident/murder and visit to the hospital - where they did not even put a band-aid on him or scan to check for possible brain damage - all I ever saw was a minor cut that he could have made himself while shaving his head. aAHHhahahaha

Either way - front or back - the damage on Z was very very very minor - and I saw that damage on the video of him at the station on the day of the incident/murder. He had worse injuries show-up several days later ( couple of weeks later? ) - that looked more like a friendly tune-up to help sell his story.

Why are you so all fired up about defending the asshole?

Are you afraid you will not have an opportunity to do likewise if the trial goes bad for Z?

BTW - just as damaging for the killer - where was all of his blood that should have soaked his clothes if he was so badly beaten ( head wounds even small ones bleed a lot ) - his clothes looked fresh - not even stains from being on the ground in a struggle. Huh - strange.

I want to defend him because people get to emotional when it comes to issues like this. I disagree with his choice to continually follow Trayvpn. They can tend to let emotion not rationality make their decisions. He also had a broken nose.

Enhanced video footage of George Zimmerman about 30 minutes after he shot Florida teenager Trayvon Martin shows little evidence of a broken nose, the president of the Florida College of Emergency Physicians said today.

A closed fracture is one that has healed. A fracture is an open fracture or just fracture unspecified till asked whether open or closed at the time Open or closed = fresh and unhealed or old and healed )

People tend to let their emotions cloud their judgment on issues like this. If something they disagree with is used to kill somebody and becomes a huge story then a racist and violent person like George Zimmerman is obviously guilty and the police definatly helped him look beat up because he killed a black kid.

Hey BTW - ever have your nose broken or break someone else's nose or see someone who got their nose broken? If you have - how long did you or they look like a raccoon ( how many days ) - with either yellow green or red or purple or a combination of such bruises? The swelling was pretty immediate - Hey? Did you or the person you saw look like Rocky - with the eyes swelled shut? ( cut me mick cut me )

The hospital report of that night did not state any broken nose. He went from there to the station for further questioning - his clothes looking neat and clean = no blood and no stains from the alleged struggle on the ground. No band-aid present at all for his severe ( not ) wounds.

The degree of injury doesn’t matter. Zimmerman was under attack, on the ground with someone larger than him slamming his head on the ground. Did you expect him to ask Trayvon how bad are you going to hurt me? I need to know before I decide to protect myself. Come on, you can’t really believe that.

Zimmerman had no idea what Travon intentions were. He didn’t know if Trayvon intended to do to him, or if Trayvon had a weapon. Zimmerman did what he had to do protect himself.

And, yeah, I am concerned that if I’m ever attacked and defend myself I might get arrested. That’s part of why this case is watched so close. People are afraid they can no longer defend themselves. Think about it, when self defense becomes illegal we are all doomed.

Why the sarcasm? No, I don’t live in a gated community. I walk to the store all the time. Just two blocks from a super market. I also walk the hike and bike trail every day. I’m not worried about being attacked. But If I were I would everything I could to stop the attack, just like Zimmerman.

Also, this case doesn’t fit the legal definition of stalking in Florida. He was following a suspicious person because of crimes in the neighborhood. It’s a reasonable thing to do.

BTW - Zimmerman pushed a confrontation after he was told that the police were on the way.

PUSHED A CONFRONTATION

When Trayvon defended himself from some nut job that was stalking him - the nut job coming out on the losing end of the confrontation ( only he can attest as really happened ) - he killed Trayvon.

You are so worried about losing the right to defend yourself - Trayvon lost his right.

Does your comment mean to say that if you push a confrontation and start getting your ass handed to you that you want to be able to kill that other guy? Will you also make up a story to support your murdering another guy?

Nope - you have a sad understanding of the situation - and - as you said - it comes from you wanting to be able to do the same as Zimmerman one day. Stalk force a confrontation and kill. Simple.

[-] 1 points by Narley (176) 2 hours ago

Why the sarcasm? No, I don’t live in a gated community. I walk to the store all the time. Just two blocks from a super market. I also walk the hike and bike trail every day. I’m not worried about being attacked. But If I were I would everything I could to stop the attack, just like Zimmerman.

Also, this case doesn’t fit the legal definition of stalking in Florida. He was following a suspicious person because of crimes in the neighborhood. It’s a reasonable thing to do.
↥twinkle ↧stinkle reply permalink

See? Zimmerman forced a confrontation - one that was unnecessary as the police were on the way - then He killed the guy he forced the confrontation with. And you want to be able to do the same - be the judge jury and executioner.

As Zimmerman said prior to hanging up the phone with the dispatcher - "They Always Get Away"

George made up his mind that Trayvon was a guilty criminal - with no reason to suspect that he had done anything wrong - he did not wait for the police - as "HE" was gonna get this guy - and he did - he killed him.

He called the police was notified that they were on the way - his excuse ended there.

Again because you seem unconcerned about the discrepancies in Zimmermans story:

BTW - just as damaging for the killer - where was all of his blood that should have soaked his clothes if he was so badly beaten ( head wounds even small ones bleed a lot ) - his clothes looked fresh - not even stains from being on the ground in a struggle. Huh - strange.

me
Wacky wayne and other opponents of the expanded use of background checks to prevent firearms getting into the hands of felons and others who shouldn’t be allowed access to deadly weapons frequently make the argument that a criminal isn’t going to try to purchase a weapon legally, and that he or she will simply go to some inner-city street corner to buy an illegal gun.

In fact, background checks do work to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Between November 1998, and February 2013,

FBI statistics prove more than one million attempts to purchase weapons were denied as a result of federally-mandated background checks.

More than 58 percent of these denials were due to the applicant being convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year or a misdemeanor punishable by more than two years.
Another 10 percent were due to the applicant being convicted of a Misdemeanor Crime of Domestic Violence Conviction.
Almost 10 percent were fugitives from justice. Many were arrested when they came back to pick up their gun!

Yet, it is estimated that 40 percent of all gun sales are transacted without any background check at all because of loopholes such as the gun show rule, in which a private gun owner can sell a gun to another private person at a gun show without any check at all.

There’s no need to look for the apocryphal street corner —
just head for the nearest gun show.
We need universal background checks now.

Amazing how this particular incident is being used against Stand Your Ground laws. A strange man who had in no way been threatened had consciously chosen to pursue Trayvon in a way that caused Trayvon concern for his personal safety and to Stand His Ground yet it is the armed assailant who is portrayed as being supported by that law. Apparently, some people aren't recognized as having a right to stand their ground.

If you know anyt hing about this, stand your ground started as a right to protect yorself in your own home. Now, if zimmerman - the ONLY living eye witness says that he felt threatened, and he can convince judge or jury of that, syg will set him free.

The gun is the physical manifestation of diseased and insidious RW "individualist," anti-government imprinting. The poison pill -- the inanimate Manchurian Candidate -- of and for divide and conquer victimization and authoritarian submission.

We are on the same team but calling for a complete gun ban would garners the kind of opposition that we had during prohibition & the ongoing drug wars, The car-gun comparison but my plan is based on a pragmatic approach centered on the fact that banning sales & manufacture does very little to the OWNED 300,000,000 guns. I think this is reasonable:

THOSE WHO CAN – DO
THOSE WHO CAN’T - RANT

YOU CAN DO:

1►
learn as much as you can about the numbers that prove what the solutions are

If you own a motor cycle, a dump truck, and a car - you are tested in each.
Require a written gun test - to guarantee the owner's understanding of gun laws thus
being forced to know the law - via the test – also means the police know who you are - and you may be less likely to commit a crime or be careless storing your guns.

Insurance should be at least as high as car insurance
[ I would like at least $1,000,000 ]
You must prove your car insurance.
Require an annual back ground check ( with fee ) to verify your suitability to own guns.
Every gun must be locked in a gun case or have a trigger lock.

Knowing that your gun & its bullets are so easily traced will make you think before using it.

additionally -

Gun fees [ licenses fees & registration fees & fines ] should be
high enough to create a very substantial gun buy-back program

Penalties must be very high in money & jail time -
especially after the first offense

No citizens ( except dealers & collectors ) need more than a small number of guns

Gun registration fees should be higher for more guns & for bigger guns.

The nra will fight against this –
but will be balanced by the insurance companies fighting for it

But the nra may be in favor of this when the nra emplyees –
the gun companies - understand that gun owners
can get paid to turn in their old gun and will be able to buy a new gun -
with an INTEGRATED lock .

If we legalize drugs, we will clear out jail cells to fill with gun law breakers
and free up police "time" for real crime investigation

We WILL get higher compliance and lower opposition if we use high fees & buyback.

Take a position of reducing guns, like assault weapons such as
semi-automatic rifles & pistols
rather than punishing a gun nut who spent $10,000 on an armory.

Is the nra & its trolls claiming that we will fail, where England & Australia succeeded in reducing gun deaths substantially by legislation?
Did England ban violence in movies? Did it legalize drugs?

Statistics clearly prove that the number of guns adds to the risk of homicides.

More complex is the effect of gun laws and restrictions.

When Australia had a massacre in 1996 when 35 people were killed, gun laws were substantially strengthened and a major buy-back was instituted.
There has not been an incident in Australia since then.
Of course, they did not have the benefit of the nra.

In 2011, there were 11,000+ gun homicides in America
In 2011, there were 35 gun deaths in England

For 2011, the average Murder Rate in Death Penalty States was 4.7,
while the average Murder Rate of States without the Death Penalty was 3.1

For 2011, the murder rates were highest in red state regions:
Per 100,000: South 5.5 Midwest 4.5 West 4.2 Northeast 3.9

Scalia - yes that Scalia - has stated the AR15s are NOT “protected” by Article 2 and that government can regulate them
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that there are "undoubtedly" limits to a person's right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, but that future court cases will have to decide where to draw the line. That link could be between you and an bushmaster.
During an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Scalia was asked whether lawmakers have the right to ban high-capacity gun magazines without violating a person's constitutional right to bear arms. "We'll see," Scalia said, suggesting that future court cases will determine what limitations on modern-day weapons are permissible.
"Some limitations undoubtedly are permissible because there were some that were acknowledged at the time" the Constitution was written, Scalia said. He cited a practice from that era known as "frighting," where people "carried around a really horrible weapon just to scare people. That was, I believe, a misdemeanor."
"So yes, there are some limitations that can be imposed," Scalia said. "What they are will depend on what the society understood were reasonable limitations at the time."
The conservative justice notably authored the Supreme Court's 2008 opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, which ruled that the Second Amendment protects a person's right to bear arms. The court ruled that "the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited."
Scalia pointed out that that the Second Amendment "obviously" doesn't apply to weapons that can't be hand-carried, and modern-day weapons like "hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes" weren't factored in at the time of the writing of the Constitution.
"My starting point and probably my ending point will be what limitations are within the understood limitations that the society had at the time," he said. "They had some limitations on the nature of arms that could be borne. So we'll see what those limitations are as applied to modern weapons."

Cars start with keys, not tests. Thousands of people drive-if not millions-illegally, never having taken any kind of test. Guns are the same thing. People steal guns all the time, or use guns that don't belong to them. People bent on illegal behavior will do it whether they've been "tested" or not.

And cars being driven by those legally driving them or illegally driving them kill 3 times the number of people that guns do every year.

According to the FBI's own data, more people died in 2011 from being hit with "personal weapons-hands, feet etc" than from shotguns and rifles COMBINED. And more people died as a result of blunt objects like hammers and clubs than EITHER shotguns or rifles. None of those (feet, hands, hammers, clubs) weapons require a written or operating test to use either.

Some people complain that comparing USA with 11,000 gun deaths to England with 35 gun deaths is not appropriate because England is nothing like USA, so here is a same country comparison:

Tougher laws & gun buyback on target
_January 15, 2013 Andrew Leigh

Since the 1997 gun buyback, your chance of being a victim of gun violence has more than halved.

To understand the policy success of the National Firearms Agreement, it's important to recognise precisely what happened. Alongside the gun buyback, what had been a patchwork of state and territory regulations was strengthened and harmonised. Self-loading rifles, self-loading shotguns and pump-action shotguns were banned. Firearm owners were required to obtain licences and register their weapons.

While the changes were backed by the then Labor opposition, political credit must go to then prime minister John Howard and National Party leader Tim Fischer for standing up to the hardliners in their own parties. They paid a short-term electoral price but history will judge them well.

In the 1990s some argued that the gun buyback would make no difference to the firearms homicide and suicide rates. Yet careful studies have shown otherwise. In the decade before Port Arthur, Australia had an average of one mass shooting (involving five or more deaths) every year. Since then, we have not had a single mass shooting. The odds of this being a coincidence are less than one in 100.

The gun buyback also had some unexpected payoffs. While at the Australian National University, in work with my former academic colleague Christine Neill, I looked at the effect of the Australian gun buyback on firearm suicide and homicide rates. Shocking as mass shootings are, they represent a tiny fraction of all gun deaths. If there's a gun in your home, the person most likely to kill you with it is yourself, followed by your spouse.

Neill and I found that the firearm suicide and homicide rates more than halved after the Australian gun buyback. Although the gun death rate was falling before 1997, it accelerated downwards after the buyback. Looking across states, we also found that jurisdictions where more guns were bought back experienced a greater reduction in firearms homicide and suicide.

We estimate that the Australian gun buyback continues to save about 200 lives per year. That means thousands of people are walking the streets today who would not be alive without the National Firearms Agreement. Other work, including that by public health researchers Simon Chapman, Philip Alpers, Kingsley Agho and Michael Jones, reaches a similar conclusion.

For the United States, where Alpers will present research on the Australian experience at the Summit on Reducing Gun Violence in America this week, reform is tougher. According to the General Social Survey, 32 per cent of US households own a gun, and a patchwork of city and state laws means that restrictions in one jurisdiction are often undercut by people travelling interstate to buy a weapon.

Historically, the US National Rifle Association was a moderate body, akin to some Australian shooting groups. It supported the first federal gun laws in the 1930s, and backed a ban on cheap ''Saturday night specials'' in the 1960s. Since the 1977 ''Cincinnati Revolt'', when hardliners took over, the NRA has opposed all restrictions on firearms ownership, including bans on assault rifles and armour-piercing bullets (''cop killers'').Members of Congress rate the NRA the most powerful lobbying organisation in the nation.

The challenge for American legislators today is to stand up to these powerful extremists, and follow the example of Australia's leaders in 1996. With 86 Americans dying each day because of gun accidents, suicides or homicides, perhaps our experience can persuade sensible US legislators that there is a better way. As in Australia, the onus is on the conservative side of politics.

For Australia, the challenges in firearms policy are more modest, but still real. All states and territories should heed the call from the Minister for Justice, Jason Clare, to implement a national firearms register. This will help to keep track of weapons when they are sold or their owners move interstate. And it will help to ensure that Australian firearms do not fall into the wrong hands.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and a former professor of economics at the Australian National University.

"Some people complain that comparing USA with 11,000 gun deaths to England with 35 gun deaths is not appropriate because England is nothing like USA, so here is a same country comparison"

Um....a "same country comparison" means you have to compare the same country to itself. You cannot compare the USA to another country that doesn't have the same population, the same demographics, the same cultures, the same mentality.

There are many studies listed under "Contention over effects of the Laws" that say there is no conclusive proof that the gun buy back program on it's own had any effect on the overall number of murders/suicides.

Leigh's work was done using modeled statistical estimates, not actual facts and data records.

Great for Australia. But you cannot then attempt to correlate "Australia before and after" with "America before and after" because you are doing the EXACT same thing that "people complain about" which is comparing TWO different countries and the number of deaths in each one, to each other.

If all you wanted to do was discuss Australia, then fine. What does it have to do with the US?

I have no idea what it has to do with Trayvon though. Very few people know what actually happened that night. One of them is dead. All this support for and speculation about both Zimmerman and Martin is a massive waste of breath and time because no one really knows what happened.

The whole stand your ground thing may even prove to have nothing to do with it because if the story really played out the way Zimmerman described it he had every right to shoot Trayvon, stand your ground or not. Again, we have no idea what happened though.

If reasonable gun control was in place, this probably would not have happened.
I think defense WILL "invoke" stand your ground as defense.
I hope the trial is over soon
Trayvon's parents have been phenominal demanding justice - not v e ngence

Remember the hundreds of thousands of civilians that have died in these wars.

You root for a president killing civilians with drones and arms child soldiers in foreign regimes.

Think about it.

We should remember Trayvon. And we should also remember our government kills way more civilians with violent weapons than the civilian population.

Where do you think gun culture gets a lot of it's umph? The military and the wars. The most popular video games are based on the recent wars. Call of Duty and all those games. Children shooting each other in their basements dreaming of having guns.

I wish all the "ban guns" people would speak up about banning drone strikes and ending wars and demilitarizing the police. As well as make suggestions of providing opportunity to steer people away from resorting to a life that utilizes gun violence. This means implementing reforms for economic equality.

I wish all the "pro guns" people saying "constitution" would speak up about the assaults on freedom of speech, the brutality against protesters, spying on Americans, and acting within the constitution in acts of war. Or maybe mention the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This means implementing reforms for economic equality.

you are a disgrace
you do exactly what faux does - you translate what I say and spin it to suit yourself
Quote me - if you dare - "killing civilians and arming child soldiers"
FYI -
I have marched in MANY anti war demonstrations and have been arrested for it

How do you know he was a thug? Just making an assumption? Anyone who gets in trouble is a thug? Your boy Bush had a record way worse than this guy, and you probably slobbered all over him regardless of actions for damn near a decade.

Trayvon who? Oh yes. Another handy dandy compliant spokesperson for the agenda.
Not that your view is particularly bad, but I do not believe it will make much difference in the outcome. 2010 statistics show 606 accidental shooting deaths. The US General Accounting Office estimates that 8% of these incidents can be prevented by child proof safety locks and 23% can be prevented by loading indicators.
It seems to have, once again, very little to do with administrative tests and usage tests. Just one more way to curtail freedom.
The statistics were from the website of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.